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WORK TITLE: Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
WORK NOTES: with Anne Martinetti, illus by Alexandre Franc, trans by Edward Gauvin
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1971
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: France
NATIONALITY: French
http://www.selfmadehero.com/news/2016/04/the-real-life-of-agatha-christie-an-evening-with-anne-martinetti/ * http://comicsworthreading.com/2016/05/22/agatha-the-real-life-of-agatha-christie/ * https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/02/agatha-real-life-christie-review-anne-martinetti-guillaume-lebeau-alexandre-franc-self-made-hero
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1971.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
Also author of biographies, novels, and graphic novels. Author, with Anne Martinetti, of the cookbook Crimes on Ice and the encyclopedia Agatha Christie from A to Z.
SIDELIGHTS
Author Guillaume Lebeau teamed with author and editor Anne Martinetti to write Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie, an illustrated biography presented in a comics or graphic novel format. The volume begins with Agatha Christie’s well-known “disappearance” in 1926: Detective novelist Christie recovered from her failing marriage by checking herself into a spa under a fake name; no one knew where she’d gone, and she was subsequently reported missing. Lebeau and Martinetti thus open their illustrated biography with the media frenzy that ensued. From there, the authors portray Christie’s childhood (including the early death of Christie’s father), her adolescence, and her adventurous adulthood. Christie was an avid traveller and adventure; she flew planes and participated in archaeological digs. The authors explore how these experiences informed Christie’s writing, and they also comment on the effects of Christie’s divorce.
Christie’s life is portrayed in cartoon-style panels by illustrator Alexandre Franc, and the volume features a range of palettes, each portraying a mood apropos to the correspondent period in Christie’s life. In this same manner, disjointed episodes in the detective novelist’s life feature surreal illustrations; more relatable anecdotes are illustrated in a more straightforward manner. This visual language also figures into a discussion of Christie’s most beloved fictional characters, such as Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, and Hercule Poirot. In fact, Lebeau and Martinetti portray imagined conversations between Christie and her characters. They write dialogue for these illustrated exchanges, thus exploring the role between creator and creation, between writer and muse. Yet, even with this highly creative addition to the biography, Agatha ends with a straightforward chronological timeline.
Reviews of the illustrated biography were largely positive, and several critics not that much has been written about Christie, Agatha provides a new angle along with surprising insights. Yet, in a rare negative assessment, online PopMatters correspondent A. Loudermilk panned Lebeau’s and Martinetti’s efforts, asserting: “If their biography is weak overall, it’s because it never fully dramatizes anything; a graphic novel in form but a flipbook in narrative. Only in dramatizing Christie’s disappearance do the authors take more time, dedicating the first 14 pages and another five midway through. I say the authors are “almost at their cleverest” because eight of those pages are wasted on Christie’s imaginary conversations with Poirot.” A Comics Worth Reading Web site columnist was far more positive, noting: “Although I’ve read all of her novels and a good deal about her life, there were items here that I didn’t know, and I loved the presentation.” The columnist went on to state that “Agatha collects a variety of short scenes into a comprehensive portrait of the mystery author’s life, covering more than just her writing. The incidents shown touch on her travels, her family, her wartime service, and yes, her checkered marital past.”
As Rachel Cooke put it in her Guardian Online assessment, “down the years, I’ve read so much about Agatha Christie . . . So when I was sent a new graphic biography of the world’s most famous crime writer, I felt only the tiniest bat squeak of enthusiasm. . . . But I was wrong to feel so half-hearted about it. . . . Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie is a total delight.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer simply advised: “Any admirer of Christie’s fiction will benefit from reading this take on her actual life.” Annie Bostrom, writing in Booklist, was also impressed, and she found that Agatha “is an attractively told story of an adventurous, modern woman who lived a very full life.” Offering further applause in Xpress Reviews, Russell Miller announced that “the saga rolls along as if readers are watching Agatha’s experience flash before their eyes.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2016, Annie Bostrom, review of Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie, p. 39.
Publishers Weekly, May 9, 2016, review of Agatha, p. 55.
Xpress Reviews, March 18, 2016, Russell Miller, review of Agatha.
ONLINE
Comics Worth Reading, http://comicsworthreading.com (March 8, 2017), review of Agatha.
Guardian Online, https://www.theguardian.com (March 8, 2017), Rachel Cooke, review of Agatha.
PopMatters, http://www.popmatters.com (March 8, 2017), A. Loudermilk, review of Agatha.
Guillaume Lebeau is the author of more than fifteen books, novels and graphic novels, among them a biography of Stieg Larsson. Together, Martinetti and Lebeau have created a cookbook inspired by Scandinavian crime fiction, Crimes on Ice, and the encyclopedia Agatha Christie from A to Z.
LC control no.: no2007072975
Personal name heading:
Lebeau, Guillaume, 1971-
Found in: Pentagone, c2007: t.p. (Guillaume Lebeau) p. 4 of cover (b.
1971 in Fontainebleau, France)
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Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
Annie Bostrom
Booklist. 112.18 (May 15, 2016): p39.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie. By Anne Martinetti and Guillaume Lebeau. Illus. by Alexandre Franc. May 2016.128p. SelfMadeHero, paper, $19.95 (97819105931101.741.5.
This graphic biography begins with Agatha Christie's self-staged disappearance in 1926, weaving back and forth through her life and memories until readers have eventually seen Christie at almost every age, learning to read, flying a plane, dusting off artifacts on an archaeological dig. Martinetti and Lebeau conjure Christie's imagination-stirring, novel-informing travels as well as her life's disappointments--her father's death while she was a young girl, her failed marriage, and others--on date-stamped, paneled pages. Franc's illustrations are light, cartoon-like, and brightly colored in ever-changing palettes, even while showing the darker moments of the author's life. Fans of the crime-fiction queen's many novels will love seeing their favorite fictional sleuths--Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, and, of course, Poirot--visit and, in Poirot's case, argue with their creator. The appeal of Agatha need not be limited to established fans, however. This is an attractively told story of an adventurous, modern woman who lived a very full life. Appendixes to this French import include a time line and a bibliography.--Annie Bostrom
Bostrom, Annie
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Bostrom, Annie. "Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie." Booklist, 15 May 2016, p. 39. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA453913631&it=r&asid=c0c3185a6f6433e30669e1883bec497d. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A453913631
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
Publishers Weekly. 263.19 (May 9, 2016): p55.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
Anne Martinetti, Guillaume LeBeau, and Alexandre Franc. SelfMadeHero, $19.95 (128p) ISBN 978-1-91059311-0
Uncovering some of the hard truths in fiction, authors Martinetti and Lebeau and artist Franc (all prolific creators in France, where this was originally published) render a stirring tribute to one of the 20th century's most popular writers. The story of Agatha Christie's life is well-researched; the book even contains a timeline in the back. However, the authors are unafraid to take creative license, most noticeably and effectively with Christie's relationship with her characters, with whom she regularly has conversations. Her interactions with her most famous protagonist, Hercule Poirot, feel tense, comedic, and tragic all at the same time, demonstrating the friction between authors and the stories they're trying to tell. The emotions are gracefully expressed with just one or two lines of ink. Any admirer of Christie's fiction will benefit from reading this take on her actual life. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie." Publishers Weekly, 9 May 2016, p. 55. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA452883347&it=r&asid=8cc8288d4ea6023886d1b4f938a242bf. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A452883347
Martinetti, Anne & Guillaume Lebeau & Alexandre Franc. Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
Russell Miller
Xpress Reviews. (Mar. 18, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Full Text:
Martinetti, Anne & Guillaume Lebeau (text) & Alexandre Franc (illus.). Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie. SelfMadeHero. May 2016. 113p. ISBN 9781910593110. pap. $19.99. LIT/BIOG
"News Flash! Agatha Christie has disappeared!" the scorching newspaper headlines roared in 1926. What had happened to the queen of the whodunit mystery novel? Was this art imitating life, or was this real-life puzzle a put-up job staged by Christie (1890-1976) for some inexplicable reason? This illuminated biography begins with this intriguing moment in the adventures of one of the world's most prolific and well-read writers. The saga rolls along as if readers are watching Agatha's experience flash before their eyes, hosted relentlessly by the plucky spirit of iconic Christie detective Hercule Poirot.
Verdict The flat and pastel imagery is accented nicely by the settings and attention to the era. Christie's story is told well in chronological snippets for easy digestion and emphasis on critical events. It also demonstrates the unique and laudable talents of an author well ahead of her time.--Russell Miller, Prescott P.L., AZ
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Miller, Russell. "Martinetti, Anne & Guillaume Lebeau & Alexandre Franc. Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie." Xpress Reviews, 18 Mar. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449663278&it=r&asid=107ce5ace01eeb0b09e2eb4c0c0326bb. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449663278
Agatha
The Real Life of Agatha Christie
by A. Loudermilk
29 July 2016
The new Agatha Christie biography is a graphic novel in form but a mere flipbook in narrative.
cover art
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
(SelfMadeHero)
US: May 2016
Amazon
Many of Agatha Christie’s mysteries feel cozy, like their English village settings, yet murder never fails to cast a long, prehensile shadow. Guilt, however deeply buried, is unearthed with the mental equivalent of an archaeologist’s trowel. Christie constructs for her readers a tragicomically rigid social order with everything to gain or lose, her books featuring contested wills, where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire blackmail, toxicology in a teacup, and the plot-ruffling appearance of impossibility. As her iconic detective Hercule Poirot claims in Murder on the Orient Express (1934), “The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
Born into a wealthy English family in 1890, Christie grew up to become not only a Queen of Crime—indeed the crowning jewel in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction—but also, on a wider level, the best-selling novelist of all time. Over 80 of her books were published between 1920 and 1976, and it’s often noted that only Shakespeare and The Bible have outsold her. To tell the story of the woman behind the body count is no small challenge. A new biography, in the graphic novel form, promises to do just that but doesn’t quite succeed. Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie is as cute as it is slight.
French authors Anne Martinetti and Guillaume Lebeauare, along with illustrator Alexandre Franc, saw their 112-page biography originally released in 2014 as a French-language Kindle edition. In May of this year, a smart-looking paperback version in English was released by the UK press SelfMadeHero, which specializes in graphic novel adaptations of classic literature. Though delighted by the prospect of this book, having been a Christie fan since adolescence, it told me little I didn’t already know and left me wondering just who’d benefit from it. I’d have loved it 30 years ago, when I was 15, and it’s certainly teen-accessible. Perhaps a newbie fan of any age could value such an easy-to-read overview.
I also found myself wondering about the title’s pledge to reveal the “real life” of Agatha Christie. Do the authors mean in contrast to her fiction, which is not real life? Or versus some previously established myth of Agatha Christie? There are no accounts of Christie’s life (e.g., her own autobiography) that are less than real, really. Perhaps the title is meant to counter assumptions that the story is to some degree fictionalized, given how the term graphic novel is used even when the content is nonfiction. The authors do present an accurate cradle-to-grave sequence of events, readily checked against Wikipedia or the official Agatha Christie website. At any rate, the main reason this telling of Christie’s life felt less than “real” to me is because I can’t imagine Christie having recurring imaginary conversations with her characters.
This has been tried before, and done well, in a psychologically edgy little film called Murder by the Book (1986). Christie (played by Dame Peggy Ashcroft) is confronted one night by Poirot (Ian Holm) but it’s all a guilt-ridden dream, prompted by the publication of Curtain in which Poirot dies. A clever, biting script and the gravitas of the performances offsets the semi-hokey premise. In Martinetti and Lebeauare’s biography, however, Poirot pops up way too often. His presence does little to reveal Christie’s psychology; instead he brings to mind the obnoxious Great Gazoo on The Flintstones. Other Christie sleuths, like Jane Marple, also make appearances, but of the 29 pages dramatizing imaginary interactions, 24 feature Poirot. Half as much would still feel like filler.
Martinetti and Lebeauare are almost at their cleverest in making use of a controversial episode that took place when Christie was 36 and coping with the dissolution of her marriage. For ten days she hid out at a spa under a false name while the world thought she’d disappeared, prompting a massive search. Christie remained mum about what happened throughout her life, the truth at last exposed in a best-selling nonfiction book from 1998 by Jared Cade (two decades after Michael Apted’s compellingly speculative film Agatha starring Vanessa Redgrave). Christie’s self-imposed disappearance, ironically mysterious, is used as a gateway into Martinetti and Lebeauare’s biography.
If their biography is weak overall, it’s because it never fully dramatizes anything; a graphic novel in form but a flipbook in narrative. Only in dramatizing Christie’s disappearance do the authors take more time, dedicating the first 14 pages and another five midway through. I say the authors are “almost at their cleverest” because eight of those pages are wasted on Christie’s imaginary conversations with Poirot.
My disappointment pains me because, despite its shortcomings, including illustrations that are rarely as eye-catching as the cover image, there’s an undeniable love of Agatha Christie built into Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie.
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
May 22, 2016 Johanna Other Publishers Leave a comment
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
Although the most widely read English author in the world during her lifetime (and according to Doctor Who, “the most popular writer of all time”), it has been 40 years since Agatha Christie passed away, so her life and the stunning extent of her career may no longer be as well known to today’s mystery fans. Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie, a graphic novel biography, should change that. Although I’ve read all of her novels and a good deal about her life, there were items here that I didn’t know, and I loved the presentation.
Agatha collects a variety of short scenes into a comprehensive portrait of the mystery author’s life, covering more than just her writing. The incidents shown touch on her travels, her family, her wartime service, and yes, her checkered marital past.
After her first husband notified her in 1926 that he had been having an affair and wanted a divorce, while she was still grieving for her recently departed mother, she disappeared for 11 days. She was found checked into a resort hotel under the last name of her husband’s mistress. That event frames the telling of her life here, although the time period still hasn’t been fully explained, since she never spoke of it and claims to have had temporary amnesia.
Agatha is written by Anne Martinetti and Guillaume Lebeau, specialists in crime fiction, and drawn by Alexandre Franc. The art and panels are welcoming and easy to read, in a straightforward layout, making this graphic memoir a wonderful gift for the mystery lover in your life, even one who may not be that familiar with comics. Christie comes alive through this graphic novel as a real person, a complex woman who wasn’t afraid to try new things but could be laid low by heartache.
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
We see Agatha as a child, demonstrating love for her parents and interacting with her siblings. She gets married to Lieutenant Archie Christie, serves as a nurse during World War I (where she learns about poisons), travels the world, has a daughter, and begins publishing. Later, she remarries an archeologist and ponders her legacy.
The comic format allows Christie to be shown having conversations with her detective characters Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, as well as cameos by other famous mystery writers, such as Dorothy L. Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle. The device makes her thoughts, concerns, and struggles visible in an involving way, particularly her ambivalence towards Poirot and his popularity.
The book is nicely underwritten, requiring the reader to pay attention and think through implications, much as with a detective story. For example, when discussing her possible second marriage with her daughter, at the end of the page, the girl (drawn well to resemble her mother) asks, “How about me? Do you love me? … As much as your books?” There’s a world of feeling in that question from a young woman jealous of inanimate objects for her mother’s affection. Just a few pages later, her characters argue amongst themselves to see who will feature in her new title, inspired by the author’s travels on the Orient Express.
(There is one interesting bit of revisionism on display. Agatha is shown at one point reciting as inspiration a nursery rhyme about “ten little Indian boys”. However, her book with that title wasn’t originally published as such; the original title was much more repulsive to today’s readers, and it’s never mentioned in this book. Christie’s cultural contexts, such as the anti-Semitism visible in some of her novels, aren’t addressed in favor of making her story more relatable to the modern reader.)
Success brings its own struggles, as she worries about tax, and age means saying goodbye to more loved ones, particularly during World War II. She gains worldwide recognition, sees her works made into successful movies and long-running plays, and is honored by the Queen. The volume concludes with a thorough timeline of key events in Agatha Christie’s life, as well as a complete bibliography. You can see preview images at the publisher’s website. (The publisher provided a review copy.)
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie by Anne Martinetti, Guillaume Lebeau and Alexandre Franc – review
A clever graphic biography of the much-loved author sees her haunted by her most famous creations
agatha christie and hercule poirot
Constant companion: Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot in Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie. Photograph: SelfMadeHero
Rachel Cooke
@msrachelcooke
Tuesday 2 August 2016 07.30 BST
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Down the years, I’ve read so much about Agatha Christie: too much, probably. So when I was sent a new graphic biography of the world’s most famous crime writer, I felt only the tiniest bat squeak of enthusiasm. Where would it begin, I wondered. In Torquay, where she spent her childhood, or in Harrogate, to which she famously disappeared in 1926? And how would it end? With Hercule Poirot’s last case, Curtain, which was published in 1975? Or with Christie’s own death at home in Oxfordshire, only a year later?
Christie, working as nurse during the first world war, notes how thin is the line between medicine and poison
As it turns out, the book does indeed open with her disappearance – “A clever way of promoting The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” says Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, reading of it in his morning newspaper. “Couldn’t have done it better myself” – just as it ends with Christie, old and frail by now, declaring with some satisfaction that she intends to kill off the “utterly selfish” Poirot before she dies. But I was wrong to feel so half-hearted about it. Yes, it’s all very familiar: here our heroine is in Egypt gazing at the sphinx, and here she is, some years later, travelling alone to Baghdad on the Orient Express. Nevertheless, Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie is a total delight. It’s almost as if she has fallen into the pages of one of Tintin’s adventures, with Hercule Poirot in the comic role usually played by Thomson and Thompson (Christie and Poirot, who appears unbidden whenever his creator is alone, enjoy regular, somewhat fractious conversations).
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The book is a collaboration between Anne Martinetti, an editor at the French crime publisher Editions du Masque; Guillaume Lebeau, the award-winning author of, among other things, a graphic biography of Stieg Larsson; and Alexandre Franc, a comics artist and illustrator. Martinetti’s influence is obvious: having worked on the definitive French edition of Christie’s novels, she is smart when it comes to linking the life and the work. In one scene, Christie, working as nurse during the first world war, notes how thin is the line between medicine and poison. In another, she sits in the dining car of the aforementioned Orient Express while Miss Marple – another character who actually wanders on to the page – points out the defining characteristics of the people gathered there (“Look at that Englishman from Smyrna giving himself airs…”). Lebeau, meanwhile, keeps the narrative rolling briskly along: the book’s concision is utterly pleasing.
agatha christie and hercule poirot
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Poirot with a ‘p’: a scene from Martinetti, Lebeau and Franc’s Agatha. Photograph: SelfMadeHero
Finally, Franc, working in ligne claire style, makes everything colourful and vivid. Sometimes, his choices are (this isn’t really a criticism) predictable: the rust red of a desert in the gloaming; the sprightly green of an English links in spring. But at others, he turns everything on its head. The Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead, where Christie lived during the war, are famously white. Franc, though, draws the building at night, mid air raid, in a mysterious inky blue, as if it were a boat bobbing on a lonely sea.
Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie is published by SelfMadeHero (£12.99). Click here to buy it for £10.65